A Former Venice Biennale Curator Hints Her Museum Might Show the Infamous ‘Salvator Mundi.’ But Is It Fake News?

Is Salvator Mundi about to go on view in
Turin?

The director of the Castello di Rivoli, one of Italy’s leading
contemporary art museums, suggests that it might be, adding another
twist to the mystery surrounding the $450 million painting
attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. In an enigmatic press release, the
Italian art museum said that a work will go on view later today,
October 30, that “could” be Salvator Mundi.

It will, at least, have something to do with it. The museum has
been tight-lipped about what exactly will go on view, but it says
the piece will be a “painting that makes the mystery of Leonardo’s
Salvator Mundi even more exciting.” The unknown
painting is due to go on view this evening.

Considering the hype and media frenzy that swirls around the Old
Master since its price skyrocketed, it is an eye-catching
announcement, not least because the museum is run by the widely
respected curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev.

Last year, Christov-Bakargiev
told artnet News that she was unimpressed by the
fuss that surrounds Salvator
Mundi. “Why would you hang this painting that looks like
a dead fish?” she asked. She has also expressed skepticism over
social media about the much-restored work’s attribution.

Currently, the Turin museum is presenting the exhibition
“D’après Leonardo,” which is on view until January 5, 2020. The
small show features a pair of works, one by Leonardo’s student,
Marco d’Oggiono, and another by the Italian postwar artist Gino De
Dominicis. Whatever is about to go on view today is due to be added
to this show. The announcement on the eve of Turin’s Artissima art
fair seems designed to maximize attention. In the press
statement, Castello di Rivoli called the reemergence of the
Leonardo work the “birth of a new myth in recent artistic
history.”

In the statement sent last evening, Christov-Bakargiev expanded
on her views about the painting, and the new arrival at the
Castello di Rivoli, whatever it might be: “[It] emerges from a
reflection on the problematic of the critical reception and market
that Leonardo da Vinci is going through in our digital
age—characterized by a celebration of scientific rather than
humanistic culture, by an accelerated dissemination of information,
including fake news, and by the difficulty of ascertaining the
authenticity of works as well as an increasingly concentrated
attention on the canonical figures of art history.”

Due to Salvator Mundi‘s astronomical sale price (the
painting sold at Christie’s for
a $450 million in 2017), and its curious absence for around two
years (there are rumors circulating that it is in Saudi Arabia
on a superyacht owned by
the Crown Prince), the work has become a fertile ground
for conspiracy theories, but also artistic responses. Earlier this
year, the Berlin-based artist Simon Fujiwara
presented a model of a fantasy museum
housing multiple, mini versions of the painting. The dioroma is
called the Salvator Mundi
Experience. 

The Louvre, which opened a major exhibition dedicated
to Leonardo last week, is still hoping to borrow the elusive
painting, should its owner oblige the curators. The Parisian
institution seemed to have been planning to include it right up to
the last minute, and even reserved wall space, according to version
of the exhibition layout seen by The Art Newspaper.

The post A Former Venice Biennale Curator Hints Her Museum
Might Show the Infamous ‘Salvator Mundi.’ But Is It Fake News?
appeared first on artnet News.